Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA)
Stanford University

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Delayscapes

Time scales of delay


super-short (spatial)
short (pitch and spectral / timbre)
medium (rhythmic)
long (motivic)
super-long (limits of similarity)

Experiencing delay

single echo, one-shot, slap back (FIR)
recirculating echoes (IIR)
multi-path echoes
interconnected mesh of echoes
no echoes, human reaction

all of the above in various proportions (real life)

Sources of delay

Acoustical (air)
Internet (path delay + hops + end points)
Mechanical (material)
Electronic (circuitry)

single echo off Tokyo JackTrip server

recirculating, Tokyo server

recirculating, Tokyo, Cape Town, Boston

mesh consisting of Tokyo, Cape Town, Boston

Effect of long delay on perceptual limits

The limit of meter: 6 seconds? super slow, anyway

The limit of similarity: 24 seconds? modification and intervening distractions can make it more like 12 seconds

It belongs to the essence of perception not only that it has in view a punctual now and not only that it releases from its view something that has just been, while 'still intending' it in the original mode of 'just-having-been', but also that it passes over from now to now and, in anticipation, goes to meet then new now. The waking consciousness, the waking life, is a living-towards, a living that goes from the now towards the new now.

E. Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917)

...time presented itself to Husserl as the best candidate for the self-manifestation of consciousness: the ordering of past-present- future as a phase-continuum is not in and of itself the manifestness of time, but the lived tension of its passage, the upsurge of its movement, the being-lived-through (Erleben) [experience] of whatever order may otherwise belong to time.

J. Dodd, Reading Husserl’s Time-Diagrams from 1917/18 (2005)

We are constantly aware of a certain duration—the specious present—varying from a few seconds to probably not more than a minute, and this duration (with its content perceived as having one part earlier and another part later) is the original intuition of time.

The practically cognized present is no knife-edge, but a saddle-back, with a certain breadth of its own on which we sit perched, and from which we look in two directions into time. The unit of composition of our perception of time is a duration, with a bow and a stern, as it were—a rearward- and a forward-looking end.

William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890)

As performers and listeners, we are good examples of creatures who live in the "specious present."

The ways in which we think ahead in time, for example reading a bar ahead in a score we're playing or anticipating upcoming chord changes or tracing the overall arch of a phrase we're building in a jazz improv, these are all examples of planning and thinking in sound.

Subjects = students and staff at Stanford
(paired randomly)

Task = play rhythm accurately, keep an even tempo
(no strategies given)

Speed of sound:

On Mars, the atmosphere is largely CO2 and much less dense than Earth's. The speed of sound is roughly 2/3 as fast and sound is more attenuated.

In network audio, the size of the packets affects the speed of sound. Transmission with larger packets containing larger chunks of time delays the signal. There's no attenuation with distance (what goes into the network is what comes out of it) and that really focuses attention on microtime. However, image arrives after sound rather than the other way around.

Thank you!

this deck is at

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~cc/deck.js/audiomostly22/

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-discover-exotic-patterns-of-synchronization-20190404/

Reading ahead

Planning ahead

Vamping automatically

...imply "thinking in sound"

"thinking in sound"

...audiation

...audialization

...auditory imagery

audiles

"thinking in sound"

...implies "thinking in time"

Chris will now stop talking.

A different voice will be used as we continue the presentation.

It is the sound of your inner voice which is what you are hearing as you read these words.

How would you rate the clarity of the imagined sound?

How would you rate the clarity of the imagined sound?

Choose:
  Perfect,  Clear,  Moderate,  Vague,  No image

adopted from Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire
(VVIQ Scale)
D. Marks, Visual Imagery Differences in the Recall of Pictures Brit. J. Psych (1973)

Is it located inside your head?

Apparently, this is not harmful to Mechanical Turk workers.

good study, very interesting

This was a very interesting hit. It is one that really makes you listen and concentrate, thanks. It was very interesting to take this survey!

Is there any way to find out what this study is for? This was interesting to do.

This was an interesting task. I've never been asked to do anything quite like it before. This was fun to complete.

I found it interesting to not be able to imagine my voice coming from a spot outside myself or any voice saying mechanical turk including that of my mother. I could hear her voice in my mind but could not imagine or hear her saying mechanical turk. Odd and I wonder why that is.

interesting

very interesting study... a subject I've never thought about but makes complete sense.

Definitely a different type survey. It was fun. Thanks for being creative!

IF IT IS MENTIONED TO SEE A PROMINENT OBJECT, ITS EASIER TO IMAGINE. LIKEWISE, ITS EASIER TO IMAGINE A PERSON IF IT IS MENTIONED TO IMAGINE A PERSON WHO IS CLOSE TO YOU.

This was a weird but interesting hit. I had never thought about this aspect of hearing or inner voices. I will work with it a bit and see what happens. I realized while doing it than depending on where my focus is, I can hear the sound/voice in different manners- in my head- my voice or a different voice, outside my head like someone else is speaking, in my head like someone else is speaking, in my head with the voice I usually hear speaking to me- whatever I think I can make physically happen.

i did my best, but some of the questions were not entirely clear to me.

As I began the task, I was able to imagine hearing my voice. Then as the task went on, it became more difficult to hear anything, because there was no sound.

This was interesting. I have very good hearing and often hear things other people don't. However, I wasn't very good at imagining a friend's voice or a sound coming from outside my head.

This was an unusual but very interesting study. It is almost like separating body and soul.

It's a fascinating topic and I found it a little difficult to describe in words, so having checkboxes was really helpful.

Daniel Schmicking poses the question "Is there imaginary loudness?" in an essay on phenomenological method. The article has merit for its critique of approaches and because its conclusions suggest openings for further investigation. He proposes that "agreement procedures" could be developed to confront the former.

"Cooperating phenomenologists then should be able to decide whether there is always quasi-loudness in auditory imagery, even if they could not claim apodicticity."

He makes a strong assertion that there is indeed imaginary loudness (quasi-loudness).

Schmicking, Daniel. 2005. Is there imaginary loudness? Reconsidering phenomenological method. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4: 169–182.

2014 study with 50 AMT workers involved perceived and imagined loudness (quasi-loudness).

On an individual level, I'm certain that the greater fraction of my own auditory experience is, in fact, internal. Modes of hearing and listening vary continually -- perceived, imagined, unconsciousness, conscious, reflex-triggering, enacting -- and it's those which take place on the proscenium of the imagination which are the least studied.

Surveys will attempt to characterize mental sound objects, object "chunking" and temporal flow with a particular goal of examining the "retention / protention" qualities named by Husserl. In these studies, browser-presented sounds and music, and inner voice will again figure in the designs – possibly engaging mental counting as a way of accessing and "time-stamping" events and objects in the "near now."

"Interaction synchrony" survey, starting with tapping to a beat.
2017 web audio examples

(click below) to open https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~cc/mturk17/

About my Web Audio coding:

The 2017 tapper project uses JavaScript async / await and
Faust dsp code generation (asmjs)

It used ScriptProcessorNode (which is now deprecated)

A new version would use the new Audio Worklet functionality for tighter timing.

With thanks to

Stéphane Letz, Greg Niemeyer, Juan Pablo Cáceres, Hongchan Choi, Steve Chafe, Rob Hmailton

John Granzow, June Holtz, Pauline Oliveros, Andrea Halpern, David Huron, Chryssie Nanou, Jonathan Berger, Jieun Oh

Andy Stuhl, Music 220 classes

Auriel Washburn, Matthew Wright,Takako Fujioka

deck.js Caleb Troughton

and plenty of others!

this slide deck available at

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~cc/deck.js/IoSnd2022



Thanks!!